Sez the Big Cheese at Mariner Central, in response to my bearish review of Mangini:
A few things.
More than a few :- )
The more info we get that we hadn't had before, the more we can triangulate the truth. :cpoints:
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- Last year Mangini played almost the entire second half with a Level-2 quad strain. Level 2 means that the muscle was almost ripped from the bone. "Strain" is a misnomer because what the injury was is a tear of the muscle tissue. I don't know how he did it, but I've talked so some people close to Mangini that state that he is one of the toughest sonsaguns around.
First things first: obviously Mangini's leg was in terrible shape and yeah, in a vacuum that can overthrow the entire evaluation.
Without a doubt, if he had a 'muscle almost ripped from the bone' then he just flat-out gets a re-set in 2011. As pertains to his projection. :daps:
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G-Money would have to speak to this, but my question would be how a man with an injury like that could walk up the three dugout steps, much less take a BP swing, much less play 3B.
Tough is tough, but the Mariners had him not only on the field, but charging bunts.
Again, we need the input of our resident cyber-trainer :- )
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- Mangini was drafted just about solely on his performance in 2006 in the Cap Cod League where he won the Thurman Munson Batting Title and landed a spot on the CCBBL All-Star team as the starting third baseman. Keep in mind that the Cape Cod League is a wooden bat league.
Another heavyweight point, Lon... great stuff...
There are guys who do well in the Cape Cod, such as Brandon Morrow among many other pitchers and hitters, who then still show 89 kinds of problems adjusting to full-season minors.
Let's say that the wooden bat never bothered Mangini ... then the fact remains that he had a very melancholy first two years, for a 1-supp pick.
If the adjustment was not the wooden bat, then it was something more concerning than a wooden bat, which makes Dr. D's concerns about the learning curve more, not less...
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Still, your point is well taken Lonni, that Mangini isn't one of those guys who drags a steel pipe through the zone to make cheap contact. If that's what I implied with my offhand 'adjust to wooden bats' remark, my bad.
As we mentioned, Mangini whips that bat around on a 95-mph heater like no Mariner can, and he gets a boatload of the (small wooden) sweet spot when he does... ergo, SSI signs off cheerfully on your observaton that Mangini is not a steel-pipe hitter.
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- In his first year of college, Mangini's natural swing was nearly demolished by coaches who thought that they knew better. It has taken all this time and the help of a few batting coaches in the M's system to straighten him out. Most notably was Phil Plantier down in West Tenn.
- While still in HS Mangini worked with local NC baseball legend Clay Council. Council has worked with just about every kid coming out of the Tar Heel State who has gone on to MLB. During the off-season of 2009/2010, Mangini reconnected with Council, who helped him get his swing back to what it once was.
This, I hadn't heard.
That would explain a whale of a lot. 'Cause Mangini is a talented hitter.
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